Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia- Being the Ilchester Lectures for 1889-90(1891)

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MODERN CUSTOMS

AND

ANCIENT LAWS

OF RUSSIA

[Rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved.^

MODERN CUSTOMS

AND

ANCIENT LAWS

OF RUSSIA

BEING

THE ILCHESTER LECTURES FOR 1889-90

BY

MAXIME KOVALEVSKY

EX-PROFESSOR OP JURISPRUDENCE IN THE

UNIVERSITY OF MOSCOW

LONDON

DAVID NUTT, 270-271 STRAND

1891

Zo tbe Gemots

OF

SIR HENRY MAINE

10'>S-3J

PREFACE.

!

The six essays here published contain the outline

of lectures delivered at the Taylorian Institution,

Oxford. The chief purpose of the lecturer was to

show how far the ancient laws of Russia have been

preserved by the still living customs of the country

people, and to what extent the modern political

aspirations of the nation are rooted in its historical

past.

I hope that those who make use of this small

volume will come to the conclusion that the im-

controlled rule of old custom would, in Russia as

^ elsewhere, be equivalent to the preservation of

C barbarism and oppression.

r^ On the other hand the English reader may very

^ likely alter his mind as to the supposed discontinuity

with the past of the movement whose progressive

^ evolution forms the chief interest of modern Russian

history.

I am persuaded that the study of the old Russian

folkmotes, and that of the Russian Parliaments of the

viii PREFACE.

sixteenth and seventeenth , centuries, will impress on

him the conviction that the modern Russian " ideal-

ogues" deserve as little this nickname as those

French Liberals, under Napoleon I., whose generous

endeavours created modem France. The so-called

Sobers, or old Russian Parliaments, constitute for

the Russian Liberals a precedent not less important

than the one furnished by the "Etats G^ndraux" to

the school of Benjamin Constant. Both parties

deserve the name of " doctrinaires " only in this

sense, that they have a " doctrine," a definite scheme

of social and political reforms, whilst their opponents

cherished, and still cherish, such vague expressions

as " nationalism in the State " and " submission to

popular ideals."

The writer owes a special debt of gratitude to

Mrs. Birkbeck Hill, who most kindly undertook the

ungrateful task of looking through his MS., and

deleting or amending all that was contrary to the

genius of the English language. Whatever measure

of success this work may obtain will be largely due

to Mrs, HiU.

MAXIME KOVALEVSKY.

December 1890.

CONTENTS.

LECTXJIIE I.

PAGE

THE MATBIMONIAL CUSTOMS AND USAGES OP THE RUSSIAN

PEOPLE, AND THE LIGHT THEY THROW ON THE EVOLUTION

OP MARRIAGE ........ I

LECTURE II.

THE STATE OP THE MODERN RUSSIAN FAMILY, AND PARTI-

CULARLY THAT OP THE JOINT OR HOUSEHOLD COMMUNITY

OF GREAT RUSSIA 32

LECTURE III.

THE PAST AND PRESENT OP THE RUSSIAN VILLAGE . COM-

MUNITY ......... 69

LECTURE IV.

OLD RUSSIAN FOLKMOTES II9

CONTENTS.

LECTURE V.

PAGS

OLD RUSSIAN PARLIAMENTS 1 62

LECTURE VI.

THE ORIGIN, GROWTH, AND ABOLITION OF PERSONAL SERVI-

TUDE IN RUSSIA 209

MODERN CUSTOMS AND ANCIENT

LAWS OF RUSSIA

I I

LECTUEE I.

THE MATRIMONIAL CUSTOMS AND USAGES OF

THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE, AND THE LIGHT THEY

THROW ON THE EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

The mde historical studies pursued by members of

the University of Oxford necessarily include the

study of the Slavonic race. The part which this

race is beginning to play in the economic and social

progress of our time, and the considerable achieve-

ments which it has already made in the fields of

literature and science have attracted the attention

even of those nations whose political interests are

supposed not to coincide precisely with those of

the Slavs. The Ilchester Lectures were, I believe,

founded in order to make known to Oxford students

the present and past of this undoubtedly Aiyan

branch of the human race. A good deal of work

has already been done by my predecessors. Pro-

fessor Thomson, of Copenhagen, by his careful study

2 MODERN CUSTOMS AND

of the Norman origin of the Russian State, has

greatly contributed to unveil even to Russians the

mystery of their far-distant past, while Professor

Turner, in the course of his brilliant lectures last

year, made you acquainted with our best modem

novelists. I do not know if my friend, the late

Mr. W. R. S. Ralston, ever lectured in the Taylor

Institute, but the accurate and lively accounts he

has given of Russian epic poems and popular tales

were undoubtedly written under the influence of the

same feelings as those which inspired the founder of

these lectures.

In England the works of Ralston were the first

to deal with the vast field of Slavonic, and more

especially of Russian, folk-lore. His chief endeavour

was to show the great amount of information which

the unwritten literature of Russia contains as to

the early stages of religious development. But

Russian folk-lore may interest a lawyer as well as

a mythologist; its study may enrich comparative

jurisprudence with new material not less than com-

parative mythology. It can no doubt unveil more

than one mystery concerning the early state of

European family law, and the various modes in

which land was held by our remotest ancestors.

The first stages in the history of political institu-

tions, and more particularly the part which the

common people were called upon in old days to

play in the management of public affairs, can be

illustrated by the history of Russian folk-motes and

ANCIENT LAWS OF RUSSIA. 3

Russian national councils, much better than by

reference to the short notices left by Caesar or

Tacitus of the popular assemblies of the Germans.

Russian serfdom, and the history of its abolition,

may also be instructive in more than one point,

even to those whose chief purpose is to study the

origin, the growth, and the abolition of personal

servitude in England, France, or Germany.

When I look to the great importance of the

modem customs and ancient laws of Russia as

regards the comparative history of institutions, I

confidently hope to meet on your part with the

indulgence which the lecturer needs who addresses

his audience in a foreign tongue. I think that the

study of Russian legal antiquities may to a certain

extent be considered as a necessary appendage of

those exhaustive inquiries in Indian and old Celtic

institutions for which we are indebted to one of your

most celebrated writers, the late Sir Henry Maine.

I feel the more pleasure in mentioning his name, as

it was by him that my first works in the field of com-

parative jurisprudence were inspired. His lectures

have found readers in the remotest parts of the

world, and have suggested to more than one foreign

scholar the idea of re-writing the legal history of his

own country.

Although recognising in him the chief representa-

tive of the legal school to which I belong, I shall

more than once put forward theories which are

altogether opposed to his : such an occasion presents


itself at once in the study of early Russian family

law.

This study will, I have no doubt, throw a clear

light on the earliest period in the evolution of

marriage that of the matriarchate. I insist the

more on this point because in England an opinion

has been expressed that the customary law of Russia

might be expected to give another illustration of the

general prevalence of the patriarchal family even in

the first stages of social development. Sir Henry

Maine has more than once* expressed this opinion,

and has found confirmation for it in certain quota-

tions made chiefly from the well-known works of

Haxthausen and Mackenzie Wallace. Both these

authors, making a large use of the rich ethnographical

literature of Russia, have correctly described the

prevailing system of Russian joint families, or house

communities, and their account may be taken

generally as a good illustration of the old patriarchal

family of the Germans and Celts. But neither of

them had any opportunity of studying in detail the

numerous survivals which we still find of a state of

things which had nothing in common with agnatism,

or eVên with a firmly established " patria potestas."

Such was not, after all, the purpose that they had

in view. Theirs was the study of contemporary life

in Russian society, and the question of the primitive

state of family relations in Russia cannot be settled

* The last time in an article on the patriarchal family published

in the Qua/rterly Review,


by reference to works which do not deal with the

subject.

Sir Henry Maine was also misled in his survey

of Slavonic family law by the well-known Bohemian

or Czech poem, "The Trial of the Princess Liu-

bouscha." This poem he quotes at great length,

and he states that it leaves no doubt as to the

existence of a sort of undivided family or house-

community in the most remote period of Bohemian

history. Unfortunately, the poem on which he

builds his conclusion is now unanimously declared

both by Slavonic and German scholars to be a

forgery by the well-known Bohemian philologist,

Hanka. It is clear, therefore, that the whole of

his theory, so far as it deals with Slavonic law

and usage, is based either on facts which concern

modern times alone, and have nothing to do with

ancient times, or on documents manifestly false.

Now let us see what evidence we possess as to

the character of early Slavonic family law. We

shall first give our authoritieS;'^nd then proceed to

draw our general conclusions.

The earliest evidence which we possess as to the

social relations of the Eastern Slavs, whose con-

federacy was the beginning of the Eussian State,

is contained in the so-called Chronicle of Nestor.

Nestor is supposed to have been a Eussian monk of

the eleventh century.

Contrasting the mode of life of the most civilised

Slavonic nation, the Polians, who were established


on the banks of the Dnieper, with that of the more

barbarous tribes of Eussia, Nestor, or perhaps it is

better to say, the unknown author of the Chronicle

which bears this name, states as follows (I translate

literally) : " Each tribe had its own customs, and

the laws of its forefathers and its own traditions,

each its own manner of life (nrav). The Polians

had the customs of their fathers, customs mild and

peaceful (tichi) ; they showed a kind of reserve

(stidenie) towards the daughters of their sons and

towards their sisters, towards their mothers and

their parents, towards the mothers of their wives,

and towards the brothers of their husbands ; to all

of the persons named they showed great reserve.

Amongst them the bridegroom did not go to seek

his bride ; she was taken to him in the evening, and

the following morning they brought what was given

for her."

" Another Slavonic tribe, the Drevlians, according

to the same chronicler, Uved like beasts ; they killed

one another, they fed on things unclean ; no marriage

took place amongst them, but they captured young

girls on the banks of rivers."

The same author narrates that three other Slavonic

tribes, the Radimich, the Viatich, and the Sever,

had the same customs ; they lived " in forests, like

other wild animals, they ate everything unclean,

and shameful things occurred amongst them between

fathers and daughters-in-law. Marriages were un-

known to them, but games were held in the outskirts


of villages ; they met at these games for dancing

and every kind of diabolic amusement, and there

they captured their wives, each man the one he

had covenanted witL They had generally two or

three wives."

I have tried to give you the nearest possible

translation of this old Russian text, the interpreta-

tion of which, however, gives rise to certain diffi-

culties not yet quite settled. I will now classify, to

the best of my power, the various facts which we

can infer from this text. First of all, it establishes

the fact that marriage in the sense of a constant

union between husband and wife, was not a general

institution among the Eastern Slavs. With the

exception of the more civilised Polians, no other

tribe is stated to have any notion of it. Of course

this does not mean that all alike were entirely

ignorant of the meaning of family life. It only

means that their mode of constituting a family did

not correspond to the idea which the author, who,

as we have said, was a monk, entertained as to

matrimonial relations. The Eadimich, Viatich, and

Sever captured their wives after having previously

come to an agreement with them. This certainly is

a method which cannot meet with the approval of a

a Christian, but nevertheless it is marriage. We

have before us an example of what ethnologists have

named " marriage by capture."

The Drevlians were even less advanced as regards

the intercoui-se between the sexes. They also had

S MODERN CUSTOMS AND

games at which women were captured ; but not a

word is said about any covenant entered into by the

captor and his supposed victim. Neither is any

mention made of these games being held on the

boundaries or outskirts of villages, a fact which

would point to the existence of a sort of exogamy

forbidding unions between persons of the same gens*

In the description which the chronicler gives ot the

Drevlians we have an instance of an almost un-

limited licence, whilst in that of the Radimich,

Viatich and Sever we find a picture of an exogamous

people; contracting marriage by capture, and yet

retaining from the period of almost unlimited licence

a sort of family communism which appears in the

relations between fathers and daughters-in-law.

No trace of this either limited or unlimited pro-

miscuousness is to be found among the PoUans, who

according to our old Chronicler, "conducted them-

selves with much reserve" towards daughters-in-

law, and- sisters-in-law, towards mothers and fathers,

towards fathers-in-law and brothers-in-law. They

seem to have been an exogamous tribe like the

Radimich, Viatich and Sever, their wives being

brought to them from outside their own gens. Un-

like the tribes just mentioned they did not, how-

ever, procure them by capture. It was not the

custom for the bridegrooms to go in search of their

wives ; they received them from the hands of the

parents of the women, and they then paid the sum

of money previously agreed upon. This means that


their mode of constituting marriage was by buying ]

their wives. The words of the Chronicler concern-

ing these payments is far from being clear, and

Russian scholars have tried to interpret them in the

sense of "dower" brought by the relatives of the

wife. But it has been recently proved that no mention

of " dower " is to be found in Russian charters before

the fifteenth century, and that the word veno used

in mediaeval Russian to designate the payment made

on marriage, has no other meaning than that oipretium

nuptiale, or payment made by the bridegroom to the

family of the bride.* The words of Tacitus concern-

ing the dos paid amongst the German tribes by the

future husband to his wife's father give precisely

the meaning of the old Russian veno, and throw

a light on the sort of payment which the chronicle

of Nestor had in view, when speaking of the matri-

monial customs of the Polians.

y The testimony of our oldest Chronicle concerning

the different forms of matrimony among the eastern

Slavs deserves our closest attention, because it is, in

all points, confirmed by the study of the rest of our

old written literature, of our epic poems, of our

wedding-songs, and of the matrimonial usages and

customs still or lately in existence in certain remote

districts of Russia. The Drevlians are not the only

Slavonic tribe to which the mediaeval chronicles

* Compare Lange, " On the Mutual Rights, according to Old

Russian Law, of Husband and Wife as regards Fortune." Peters-

burg, 1886.

lo MODERN CUSTOMS AND

ascribe a low state of morality. The same is asserted

of the old Bohemians or Czechs in the account given

of their manners and customs by Cosmas of Prague, a

Latin annalist of the eleventh century, who says :

Gonnvbia erant illis communia. Nam more pecudmn

singvlas ad nodes novos prohant hymenaeoSy et surgente

aurora .... ferrea amoris rumpunt vincula" This

means : " They practised communal marriage. For,

like animals, they contracted each night a fresh

marriage, and as soon as the dawn appeared they

broke the iron bonds of love."

This statement is directly confirmed by that of

another mediaeval author, the unknown biographer

of St. Adalbert. This writer ascribes the animosity

of the Bohemian people towards the saint to the

fact of his strong opposition to the shameful promis-

cuity which in his time prevailed in Bohemia.

It is confirmed, also, by the monk of the Russian

Abbey of Eleasar, known by the name of PamphU,

who lived in the sixteenth century. Both speak of

the existence of certain yearly festivals at which

great licence prevailed. According to the last-named

author, such meetings were regularly held on the bor-

ders of the State of Novgorod on the banks of rivers,

resembling, in that particular, the annual festivals

mentioned by Nestor. Not later than the beginning

of the sixteenth century, they were complained of

by the clergy of the State of Pscov. It was at that

time that Pamphil drew up his letter to the Governor

of the State, admonishing him to put an end to these.

ANCIENT LAWS OF RUSSIA. ii

annual gatherings, since their only result was the

corruption of the young women and girls. According

to the author just cited, the meetings took place, as

a rule, the day before the festival of St. John the

Baptist, which, in pagan times, was that of a divinity

known by the name of Jarilo, corresponding to the

Priapus of the Greeks. Half a century later the

new ecclesiastical code, compiled by an assembly of

divines convened in Moscow by the Czar Ivan the

Terrible, took effectual measures for abolishing every

vestige of paganism ; amongst them, the yearly fes-

tivals held on Christmas Day, on the day of the bap-

tism of our Lord, and on St. John the Baptist, com-

monly called Midsummer Day. A general feature of

all these festivals, according to the code, was the preva-

lence of the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. How

far the clergy succeeded in suppressing these yearly

meetings, which had been regularly held for centuries

before on the banks of rivers, we cannot precisely

ay, although the fact of their occasional occurrence,

even in modern times, does not tend to prove their

complete abolition. More than once have I had an

opportunity of being present at these nightly meet-

ings, held at the end of June, in commemoration of

a heathen divinity. They usually take place dose

to a river or pond ; large fires are lighted, and over

them young couples, bachelors and unmarried girls,

jump barefoot. I have never found any trace of

licentiousness; but there is no doubt that cases of

licence do occur, though seldom in our time. That


a few centuries ago they were very frequent has been

lately proved by some curious documents preserved in

the archives of some of the provincial ecclesiastical

councils, particularly in those existing in the Govern-

ment of Kharkov. According to these documents,

the local clergy were engaged in constant warfare

with the shameful licentiousness which prevailed at

the evening assembles of the peasants, and more than

once the clergy succeeded in inducing the authorities

of the village to dissolve the assemblies by force.

The priests were often wounded, and obliged to seek

refuge in the houses of the village elders from the

stones with which they were pelted. These evening

assemblies are known to the people of Great Bussia

under the name of Posidelkiy and to the Little

Russians by that of Vechemitzi.

The licentiousness which formed the characteristic

feature of these meetings throws light on the

motives which induce the peasants of certain Great

Russian communes to attach but small importance

to virginity. Russian ethnographers have not infre-

quently mentioned the fact of young men living

openly with unmarried women, and, even in case of

marriage, of giving preference to those who were

known to have already been mothers.

However peculiar all these facts may seem,

they are very often met with among people of quite

a distinct race. The AUemanic populations of the

Grisons, no longer ago than the sixteenth century,

held regular meetings which were not less shameful

m^m


than those of the Cossacks. The Kilbenen were

abolished by law,* but another custom, in direct anta-

gonism to morality, continued to exist all over the

northern cantons of Switzerland and in the southern

provinces of Wurtemberg and of Baden. I mean

the custom known under the name of Kirchgang

or Dorfgeheriy which, according to the popular

songs, consisted in nothing else than the right of a

bachelor to become the lover of some young girl, and

that quite openly, and with the implied consent of

the parents of his sweetheart. May I also mention

a similar custom amongst the Welsh, known as

"bundling"? I am not well enough informed as to

the character of this custom to insist on its resem-

blance to those already mentioned. The little I have

said on the German survivals of early licence may

suffice to establish this general conclusion ; that the

k no measure to increase the

numbw v^f chvx^ls and educational establishments.

Thev are prebably the sole n^^resieiitauve assemblies


which never uttered a word about science or scholar-

ship. It was chiefly due to their ignorance that their

opinions about commercial intercourse with foreign

countries were so little rational. It is not surprising

if the whole policy of trade reduced itself, according

to their understanding, to the elimination of the

competition of the Eastern and Western merchants.

With such helpers as these no general reform,

like that of Peter the Great, was likely to

be accomplished. It may be easily understood,

therefore, why this greatest of Russian revolution-

ists never tried to associate the Sobers in his

work. The reforms at which he aimed : the subver-

sion of the civil and military organisation, the

introduction of a totally new provincial administra-

tion, copied from Swedish originals ; of a standing

army, like those of the French and German autocrats ;

the opening of Russian markets to the competition of

foreign merchants ; the establishment of technical

schools and such like innovations, were not to be

carried out by ** the decision of the whole land,'* to

employ the consecrated term for Russian legal enact-

ments during the period directly preceding that of

Peter the Great. " Enlightened despostism " found in

Russia the same difficulty in going hand in hand

with the old Assemblies of estates, as it did in

Austria at the time of Joseph the Second.

Fully to understand the reasons which prevented

the forther development of the Russian national

councils, we must also bear in mind that the period

2o6 MODERN CUSTOMS AND

in which Russia, by the genius of Peter, was thrown

into active intercouse with European powers, was far

from being the golden age of representative Govern-

ment. When the Sobers began to take root in the

Russian soil, Parliaments and States-General were

rapidly advancing to a state of complete annihilation

or temporary suppression. What importance can we

attach to the deliberations of the English Parliaments

under the Tudors, or even under the Stuarts, up to

the year 1 640 ? What National Assembly can we

mention in France after the year 1 6 1 3 ? The fall of

representative institutions, which we notice both in

England and in France, was a common fact of

European history. The German Reichstag and the

Landstahde of the different States which composed

the Holy Roman Empire had fallen into the same

state of political insignificance during the period

following the treaty of Munster. The same fate

had overtaken the Cortes of Castillo and Aragon, and

the provincial estates of Hungary and Bohemia. All

over Europe monarchical power was steadily increas-

ing, and autocracy becoming the ruling principle of

the day. Was it likely, therefore, that Peter, who

declared that he would willingly have given to

Richelieu a good moiety of his dominions on con-

dition of being taught by him how to rule the

remainder, was it likely, I ask, that that same Peter

should bring home from his long voyages in the

West any particular respect for representative insti-

tutions ? It is, therefore, easily understood why.


from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the

Sobors, without being abolished, should have ceased

to be convened.

It was not until there was a general revival ot

representative institutions throughout Europe that

Russian statesmen were found once more occupied

with the question of the Sobors.

Alexander I., to judge by the liberality with

which he endowed the Poles with a representa-

tive assembly, was, at least in the first part of his

reign, not directly opposed to the idea of re-calling to

life those venerable institutions of the past. Among

the papers of his most intimate Councillor, Speransky,

there has been found the project of a constitution,

according to which the Council of State, this natural

heir of the old Russian Douma, was to be

strengthened by the introduction of representatives

and notables, chosen from the different Estates of the

Empire. In much more recent days a similar pro-

ject was presented by Loris Melikoff to Alexander IL,

and an imperial ukase summoning this new Assembly

of notables was already signed, when the premature

death of the Emperor put an end to the expectations

of the Liberal party. In the first weeks of his reign

Alexander III. himself was not opposed to the idea

of reviving the old national institution of the Sobors,

and his first two ministers for Home Affairs, Loris

Melikoff and Ignatiev, were both in favour of such a

reform. It was only from the day when Count

Dimitri Tolstoi took upon his shoulders the burthen

2o8 MODERN CUSTOMS AND

of the home politics of Russia, that all thoughts were

given up of convoking a representative assembly-

The Government then entered on the fatal task of the

subversion of all recent reforms. Nobody can tell

how long will be the duration of the period of

reaction upon which we have entered ; but on the

other hand nobody can doubt that the convocation of

a national council is the most natui-al way of satisfying

the wishes of the constantly increasing party of

malcontents a body of men which has been nick-

named by its opponents "the Intelligent Party*'

{intdlig entia) â nick-name, which certainly cannot

offend^those on whom it is conferred.

The convocation of a national representative as-

sembly would no doubt close the era of misunder-

standing between the Russian people and the im-

perial power of the Czars ; it would unite the Russian

past with the present and future ; and would once

more open a large field to the co-operation of society

for the redress of old wrongs and the establishment

of personal liberty and social justice.


LECTURE VL

THE ORIGIN, GROWTH, AND ABOLITION OF

PERSONAL SERVITUDE IN RUSSIA.

An account of the origin, growth, and abolition of

serfdom in Russia might easily be made to fill

volumes, so vast and so various are the materials on

which the study of it is based. But for the purpose

now in view, that of bringing before your notice the

general conclusion to which Russian historians and

legists have come as to the social development of

their country, perhaps a single lecture will suffice.

In it I cannot pretend to do more than present to

you those aspects of the subject on which the minds

of Russian scholars have been specially fixed of late

years.

Among the first to be considered is the origin of

that system of personal servitude and bondage to

the land in which the Russian peasant lived for cen-

turies. An opinion long prevailed that this system

was due solely to the action of the State, which, at

the end of the sixteenth century, abolished the free-

dom of migration previously enjoyed by the Russian

2IO MODERN CUSTOMS AND

peasant and bound him for ever to the soil. This

opinion, which would have made Russian serfdom an

institution quite apart from that of the serfdom of

the Western States of Europe, has been happilj

abandoned, and consequently its development be-

comes the more interesting, in so far as it discloses

the action of those economic and social forces which

produced the personal and real servitude of the so-

called villein all over Europe.

Whilst stating the most important facts in the

history of Russian serfdom, I shall constantly keep

in view their analogy with those presented by the

history of English or French villenage. By so doing

I hope to render the natural evolution of Russian

serfdom the more easily understood.

The first point to which I desire to call your atten-

tion is the social freedom enjoyed by the Russian

peasant in the earlier portion of mediaeval history.

The peasant, then known by the name of smerd

from the verb smerdet, to have a bad smeU ^was

as free to dispose of his person and property, as was

the Anglo-Saxon ceorl, or the old German mark-

genosse. He had the right to appear as a witness

in Courts of Justice, both in civil and in criminal

actions ; he enjoyed the right of inheriting â right,

however, which was somewhat limited by the preva-

lence of family communism and no one could pre-

vent him from engaging his services to any landlord

for as many years as he liked, and on terms settled

by contract. Lack of means to buy a plough and

A'

A'


the cattle which he needed for tilling the ground

very often led the free peasant to get them from his

landlord on condition that every year he ploughed

and harrowed the fields of his creditor. It is in

this way that an economic dependence was first ,

established between two persons equally free, equally i

in possession of the soil, but disposing the one of a

larger, the other of a smaller capital. The name

under which the voluntary serf is known to the

Pravda, the first legal code of Bussia, is that of

roleini zakoup ; this term signifies a person who has

borrowed money on condition of performing the work

of ploughing (rah means the plough) so long as his

debt remains unpaid.

The frequent want of the simplest agricultural

implements, which Magna Charta designates ss

contenementum^ was also probably the chief cause,

which induced more than one Russian peasant to

prefer the condition of a sort of French metayer or

petty farmer, whose rent, paid in kind, amounts to a

fixed proportion of the yearly produce, to that of a

free shareholder in the open fields and village com-

mon. The almost universal existence of metayage^ or

farming on the system of half-profits, is now gene-

rally recognised. Thorold Rogers has proved its

existence in mediaeval England, and in France and

Italy this system is still found. In saying this,

I have particularly in view the French champart and

the mezzeria of Tuscany.

The prevalence in ancient Russia of the same rude


and elementary mode of farming is established by

numerous charters and contracts, some of which are

as late as the end of the seventeenth century, whilst

others go back to the beginning of the sixteenth. It

would appear that previous to that date such con-

tracts were not put into writing, apparently on ac-

count of the small diffusion of knowledge. We are

therefore reduced to the necessity of presuming the

existence of these contracts solely because the in-

trinsic causes which brought them into existence in

the sixteenth century had been in operation for

hundreds of years before. The peasant, on entering

into such a contract, took upon himself the obligation

of paying back in the course of time the money

which had been lent to him the " serebrOy^ silver,

according to the expression used in contemporary

documents. From the name of the capital intrusted

to them (the serebro) arose the surname of serebrenik,

which may be translated silver-men, under which

peasants settled on a manor were generally known ;

their other being polovnik, or men paying half of

their yearly produce to the lord, although as a rule

their payments did not amount to more than a

quarter. So long as his debt remained unpaid the

metayer was obliged to remunerate the landlord by

villein service performed on the demesne lands of

the manor. According to the German writer Herber-

stein, who visited Russia in the seventeenth century,

the agricultural laboiu: which the serebrenik performed

for the lord very often amounted each week to a six-


days' service, at any rate in summer. Contracts

still preserved also speak of other obligations of the

serebreniky yery like those of the mediaeval English

socman. Such, for instance, were the obligations of

cutting wood and of forwarding it on their own carts

to the manor-house, and of paying certain dues on the

occasion of the marriage of the peasant's daughter.

I need not insist on the similarity which this last

custom presents to the mediaeval English and French

maritagiumy or formariage^ so evident is the like-

ness between them. Custom also required the peasant

to make certain presents to his lord at Christmas and

Easter, or at some other yearly festival, such for in-

stance as that of the Assumption of the Blessed

Virgin,

Thje peasant who chose to settle on the land of a

manorial lord got the grant of a homestead in addi-

tion to that of land, and this was the origin of a sort

of house-rent called the prqjivnoe^ which as a rule

amounted yearly to the fourth part of the value of

the homestead.

As to the land ceded by the landlord to the settler

who wished to live on his manor, its use became the

origin of another special payment, the obrok, which

represented a definite amount of agricultural produce.

The obrok was often replaced by the obligation of

doing certain fixed agricultural labour on the demesne

land of the manor*

I .

As soon as the peasant had repaid the money

borrowed from the manorial lord, and had discharged


all the payments required from him for the use of his

land and homestead, he was authorised by custom to

remove wherever he liked, of course giving up to the

squire his house and his share in the open fields of

the manor. At first this right of removal could be

exercised at any period of the year, but this being

found prejudicial to the agricultural interests of the

country certain fixed periods were soon established,

at which alone such a removal was allowed. Usually

the end of harvest was fixed as the time when new

arrangements could be entered into with regard to

future agricultural labour without causing any loss

to the interests of the landlord. Not only in autumn,

however, but also in spring, soon after Easter, manorial

lords were in the habit of permitting the establish-

ment of new settlers on their estates, and the with-

drawal of those peasants who expressed a desire to

leave.

The first Soudebnik, the legal code published by

Ivan III. in 1497, speaks of the festival of Saint

George, which according to the Kussian calendar

I falls on the 26th of November, as a period at which

all removals ought to take place. Those peasants

who had not been fortunate enough to free themselves

fi:om all obhgations to the manor by this period were

obliged to remain another year on its lands ; he who

was unable to repay the lord the sum borrowed was

reduced to the same condition as that of the insolvent

farmers of the Koman ajfer publicus^ who, according

to Fustel de Coulanges, saw their arrears of debt


changed into a perpetual rent called the canon^

and their liberty of migration superseded by a state

of continual bondage to the land they cultivated.

No Russian historian has shown the analogy existing

between the origin of the Roman colonatus and that

of Russian serfdom so clearly as Mr. Kluchevsky,

the eminent professor of Russian history in the Uni-

versity of Moscow. It is to him that we are indebted

for the discovery of the fact that centiuies before

the legal and general abohtion of the right of free

migration a considerable number of peasants had

thus ceased to enjoy that liberty. Such was the

case of those so-called *' silver-men from the oldest

times/' viz., starinnii serebrenniMy who during the

sixteenth century were already deprived of the right

of free removal from no other cause but the want of

money, so that the only condition on which they

could withdraw from the manor on which they were

was that of finding some other landlord willing to

pay the money they owed, and thereby acquiring

the right to remove them to his own manor.

So long as the Russian power was geographically

limited to the possession of the central provinces in

the immediate neighbourhood of Moscow, and so

long as the shores of the Volga and Dnieper suffered

from almost periodical invasions of the Tartars, the

Russian peasant who might wish to leave a manor

could not easily have procured the land he required;

but when the conquests of Ivan III. and Ivan the

Terrible had reduced to naught the power of the

2i6 MODEKN CUSTOMS AND

Tartars, and had extended the Eussian possessions

both to the East and to the South, the peasants

were seized with a spirit of migration, and legislation

was required to put a stop to the economic insecurity

created by their continual withdrawal from the manors

q Inner Eussia to the Southern and Eastern steppes.

^t is, therefore, easy to understand why laws to

prevent the possibility of a return of peasant migra-

tion were first passed, at least on a general scale, at

this period. It is no doubt true that, even at the

end of the fifteenth century, to certain monasteries

were granted, among other privileges, that of being

firee from the liability of having their peasants re-

moved to the estates of other landlords. A charter

of the year 1478 recognises such a privilege as be-

longing to the monks of the monastery of Troitzko-

Sergievsk, which is, according to popular belief, one

of the most sacred places in Eussia. The financial

interests of the State also contributed greatly to the

change. The fact that the taxpayer was tied to the

soil rendered the collection of taxes both speedier

and more exact. These two causes sufiiciently ex-

plain why, by the end of the sixteenth century, the

removal of peasants from manor to manor had be-

come very rare.

The system of land endowments in favour of the

higher clergy and monasteries, and also of persons

belonging to the knightly class, had increased to

[ such an extent that, according to modem calcu-

lation, two-thirds of the cultivated area was

\


already the property either of ecclesiastics or oi

secular grandees. It is therefore easy to understand

why, during the sixteenth century, the migratory

state of the Russian agricultural population came to \

be considered as a real danger to the State by the

higher classes of Russian society. The most power-

ful of the nobles and gentry did their best to retain

the peasants on their lands. Some went even far-

ther, and, by alleviating the burdens of villein-

service, and securing a more eflGicient protection for

them from administrative oppression, induced the

peasants who inhabited the lands of smaller squires

to leave their old homes and settle on their manors.

It was in order to protect the small landowners from

this sort of oppression that Boris Goudonov, the all-

powerful ruler of Russia in the reign of Theodor

Ivanovitch, promulgated a law, according to which

every one was authorised to insist on the return of a

peasant who left his abode, and that during the five

years next following his departure. This law was

promulgated in 1 597, As no mention is made in it

of the right previously enjoyed by the peasants of

removing from one manor to another on St. George's

Day, this law of 1597 has been considered by his-

torians as the direct cause of the introduction of the

so-called " bondage to the soil " (Arepostnoie pravo).

Such was certainly not its object. The right of

migration on the Day of St. George was openly

acknowledged by the laws of 1601 and 1602. The

bondage of the peasant to the soil became an

W'

2i8 MODERN CUSTOMS AXD

established fact only in the year 1648, when the

new code of law, the so-called Ouloffienie (chap. xL),

refused to any one the right to receive on his lands

the peasant who should run away from a manor,

and abolished that limit of time beyond which the

landlord lost the right to reclaim the peasant who

had removed from his ancient dweUing.

The number of serfs rapidly increased during the

second half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth

centuries, owing to the prodigality with which the

Czars and Emperors endowed the members of the

official class with lands, in disregard often of their

previous occupation by free village communities, the

members of which were forced to become the serfs of

the persons who received the grant. It is in this

way that Catherine 11. , for instance, during the

thirty-four years of her reign, increased the number

of serfe by 800,000 new ones, and that Paul I., in a

period of four years, added 600,000 to the number,

which was already enormous.

Before the reign of Catherine, serfdom was almost

unknown in Little Bussia, where it had been abo-

lished by Bogdan Chmejnitzky, soon after the sepa-

ration of Little Bussia from Poland, and in the

Ukraine (the modem Government of Kharkov), where

it had never before existed. In 1788 she revoked

the right hitherto enjo^'êd by the peasants of these

two provinces to remove from one manor to another.

The same right of free removal was abolished a few

years later in the " Land of the Don Kossacks " and

ANCIEKT LAWS OF RUSSIA. 219

among the peasants of the Southern Governments,

called New Russia {Novorossia).

But if the second part of the eighteenth century

saw the territorial extension of serfdom over almost

all the Empire, it was also the period in which first

began the movement which led to emancipation.

From France came the first appeals for the liberation

of the serfs. In 1 766 the Society of Political Econo-

mists founded in Petersburg on the model of the

agricultural societies of France was asked by the

Empress to answer the question : " Whether the

State would be benefited by the serf becoming the

free owner of his land ? " Marmontel and Voltaire

considered it to be their duty to express opinions

in favour of a partial abolition of serfdom. Mar-

montel thought that the time was come to supersede

villein-service by a sort of hereditary copyhold.

Voltaire went a step farther, inviting the Empress

to liberate immediately the serfs on the Church

lands. As to the rest, free contract alone ought to

settle the question of their emancipation. Another

Frenchman much less known, the legist Beards de

TAbaye, gave it as his opinion that the Government

should maintain a strict neutrality towards the ques-

tion of serfdom. It ought to be abolished only by

free contract between landlords and serfs, the former

endowing the latter with small parcels of land. In

this way the serf would become a private owner, so

that in case he should rent any land from the squire,

the squire would be able to seize the peasant's plot

Z20 MODERN CUSTOMS A>T)

in case of non-pajment of his rent. Diderot was

the onl J Frenchman who acknowledged the necessity

of an immediate abolition of personal servitude ; bat

in his letters to the Empress he does not saj a

single word about the necessity for securing to the

liberated serf at least a small portion of the manorial

land

Although Catherine IL was willing to be advised

by the Encyclopedists as to the way in which serf-

dom might be abolished, she took effectual means

to prevent the expression of Kussian public opinion

on the same subject. A memorial presented to the

Petersburg Society of Political Economists by a

young Bussian author called Polenov was not al-

lowed to appear in print, for no other reason than

that it contained a criticism on the existing system

of serfdom.* The author of the memorial did not

demand the immediate abolition of this old wrong ;

he only wanted to see it replaced by a sort of per-

petual copyhold. The Government was more severe

towards another Russian writer, Radischev, who was

the first to advocate not only the personal liberty of

the serf, but also his endowment with land. The

work of Radischev t appeared in 1 789, several years

after the suppression of the insurrectionary move-

ment of Pougachev, but it was regarded as a sort of

commentary on the demand for *' liberty and land,"

*

* Compare V. Semevsky, " The Peasant Question in Enssia

during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century," Petersburg, 1 888.

t ** The Voyage from Petersburg to Novgorod.*'


which the Russian peasant had addressed to that

leader, who had answered it by a solemn promise

that he would make the serf free and prosperous.

Catherine not only ordered the immediate suppres-

sion of the work of Eadischev, but brought the

author before the Courts of Justice, accusing him

of being a traitor to his country. Radischev was

Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia- Being the Ilchester Lectures for 1889-90(1891)

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